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Papers

For your reference, Vaillant excerpts here (PDF 0.7 MB) — DavidMack (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I put 20 good quality pdf papers on AA into a zip file available here (5 MB, R click to download). Geocities only allows one download per hour, if someone could post this on a more accessible site. It's all copyright material, so I'll take it down on Jan 24 or so. — DavidMack (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Loaded language all throughout article

This article uses the AA-specific redefinition of "sobriety" all throughout, wherever it refers to long-term abstinence. This article also has several NPOV issues, especially in the second paragraph of "cult-like behavior," which reads more like a (non-cited) defense of AA than an examination of this particular controversy.

Can we please work to fix this? - Scipiocoon 12:37am 11 Jan 2008 (CST)

The cult section rebuttal to criticism is sourced as is most of the article, what doesn't sound factual? Do you have an example of the sobriety issue? -Bikinibomb (talk) 08:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sourced it may be, but that does not mean that it is un biased. Other criticism sections in better articles than this one do not include the response to the criticisms. Step13thirteen (talk) 13:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True, but those criticism sections are adressing somthing that has already been referenced in the article. The cult section offers new information that dosn't appear in the article...and the critisism itself is highly contriversial since it is done based on scientific studies, and there are other studies out there that come up with different results. hell I have a peer reviewed article that adresses this very topic and the result is "there is no evidance to back up the claim that AA is a cult" but I decided not to add that because the cult section adresses both sides well and it would have just cluttered up the article. Coffeepusher (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the cult section:

The rhetoric and emotional language of AA leads some journalists and social scientists to fear AA is a religion or cult: that the term "sobriety" has taken on a religious flavor and AA members over-rely on dogmatic slogans and are slaves to the group;[73] that AA's need for submission to a higher power leaves potential for abuse, and submission can become the basis for cult-like cohesion.[74] Individual alcoholics attending incompatible AA groups or allying themselves with unfortunate sponsors sometimes tell horror stories about AA. Common to cults, AA members are not encouraged to take a dispassionate or scientific view of their organization, and as with any partisan group, members can be extremely and erroneously opinionated, convinced for example, that AA is the only way to recover from alcoholism.[75]

AA is unlike cults in that its program is based on suggestion only, religious conviction does not prevent AA membership since it has no doctrine of any one specific type of God or obedience to charismatic leaders, and it operates on the principle of leadership rotation. Vaillant argues that AA's encouragement of dependence is healthy in the way that dependence on exercise is healthy,[47][76] and it does not try to isolate its members from society and take over their lives by creating an unusual and total dependence on the organization for basic human needs like friends, food, and shelter, as is typical with other cult practices.[77]

The Roman stuff is the criticism. The italicized stuff is response to the criticism. It's POV, and it's synthesis. It's not the encyclopedia's job to respond to the criticism. PhGustaf (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that it is synthesis. the responce isn't actually a responce, but rather the other side of the cult argument cited by peer reviewed sources. to leave it out would say that the only sources that we can put in the Cult section are ones who support the claim and no other viewpoints no matter how repritable. Coffeepusher (talk) 17:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added the underlined bit above. — DavidMack (talk) 18:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Other criticism sections in better articles than this one do not include the response to the criticisms." Articles are done all different ways, sometimes criticism comes after each point, not just in one section. Sometimes there is a rebuttal, sometimes not. All I've ever seen from the Big Book and meetings is "hey we're here to help, if you don't want it, go experiment, hats off if you can drink successfully." Plus you don't have to give up your money or first-born etc. to belong there. So in those ways it's not like a cult, and it's good to note that for NPOV.

Although I personally think it is like a cult just in the way that the steps are derived from the New Testament through Oxford but applied to any god you want. Now that's something a source should probably be found for and mentioned here if someone really wants to make a strong case for it, since the criticisms listed now are pretty lame. But again there can be a rebuttal that it's not humane, or whatever, to exclude non-Christians from a solution for their drinking. So it works both ways. -Bikinibomb (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 :I added the underlined bit above. — [[User:Davidmack|DavidMack]] ([[User talk:Davidmack|talk]]) 18:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
-:"Other criticism sections in better articles than this one do not include the response to the criticisms." Articles are done all different ways, sometimes criticism comes after each point, not just in one section. Sometimes there is a rebuttal, sometimes not. All I've ever seen from the Big Book and meetings is "hey we're here to help, if you don't want it, go experiment, hats off if you can drink successfully." Plus you don't have to give up your money or first-born etc. to belong there. So in those ways it's not like a cult, and it's good to note that for NPOV.
+"Other criticism sections in better articles than this one do not include the response to the criticisms." Articles are done all different ways, sometimes criticism comes after each point, not just in one section. Sometimes there is a rebuttal, sometimes not. All I've ever seen from the Big Book and meetings is "hey we're here to help, if you don't want it, go experiment, hats off if you can drink successfully." Plus you don't have to give up your money or first-born etc. to belong there. So in those ways it's not like a cult, and it's good to note that for NPOV.
-:Although I personally think it is like a cult just in the way that the steps are derived from the New Testament through Oxford but applied to any god you want. Now that's something a source should probably be found for and mentioned here if someone really wants to make a strong case for it, since the criticisms listed now are pretty lame. But again there can be a rebuttal that it's not humane, or whatever, to exclude non-Christians from a solution for their drinking. So it works both ways. -[[User:Bikinibomb|Bikinibomb]] ([[User talk:Bikinibomb|talk]]) 00:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
+Although I personally think it is like a cult just in the way that the steps are derived from the New Testament through Oxford but applied to any god you want. Now that's something a source should probably be found for and mentioned here if someone really wants to make a strong case for it, since the criticisms listed now are pretty lame. But again there can be a rebuttal that it's not humane, or whatever, to exclude non-Christians from a solution for their drinking. So it works both ways. -[[User:Bikinibomb|Bikinibomb]] ([[User talk:Bikinibomb|talk]]) 00:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)